Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Post 310. FURTHER NEWS AND VIEWS.

HOME.
Our Roz.
 

Roz Barnden has been to Southampton for an MRI scan to determine the extent of her cancer.
Results awaited.
In a week or so she will start on chemotherapy treatment over here. Apropos that treatment, she concluded that she was not prepared to wait for the possibility that her hair might fall out, but would have it cropped and, in the process, raise money for the Earl Mountbatten Hospice.
The original plan was that her hair be sheared at Medina College, where she is a LSA, but that idea became another weird victim of Insurance or something (yeah, beats me too) so last Friday she had it expertly cropped by professional hairdresser Hannah Fairhead (pictured behind her) at Pin Ups Hair and Beauty Salon in Newport. To date she has raised close on £500 for the charity.
I shall be writing more when we know more.
It's holiday time.
Were you one of the heatwave whiners?
('It's too close indoors.' 'It's too hot to go out.' 'The grass will never grow again.' 'I can't sleep at night.' 'There'll be a national hosepipe ban.' 'The cost of farm produce will soar.' etc. etc.)
My less than empathetic response has tended to be:  'Look, before July is over the school holidays will start. The bloody weather will change then. Bet on it.'
I rest my case, m'lud.
Trump's gone.
He met the Queen, who looked about as happy as she did on her grandson Harry's wedding day, he talked crap and he buggered off. What's new?
TELEVISION.
The Wright Stuff: Since it underwent a much publicised change of studio venue, and let the sometimes dislikeable Matthew Wright go, this daily Channel 5 chat show has become so increasingly self-congratulatory, politically correct, holier-than-thou and change-for-the-sake-of-change, that it would be better called The Wrong Stuff. Nowadays I only watch it for Kevin O'Sullivan's tele on Fridays or if I chance to find out that Yasmin A-B is going to be on. She'll complain again and again and, probably, again. But she'll be classy with it. So I like her. Doesn't mean I always agree with her.* Word is the programme will be given another name when Jeremy Vine takes over as host this coming September. I assume it will then become A Vine Time or some such brain taxing title. He'll not improve it any more than he ever has
Eggheads on BBC2 from which, presumably, he will depart. Way back in this blog I complained that The Eggs was dumbing down and, considering how the producers had weighted the format to favour the challengers (nobody, given the choice - which challengers have - would ever opt for the second set of questions) it wouldn't be long before any pub quiz team in the country could beat them. Sad to say, any pub quiz team in the country now does beat them - frequently.
I don't call that good tele, I call it rigged rubbish.
Were it not for Brexit I'd rather watch the news.
Perhaps I have just become disenchanted with television in general. The modern picture is so much better, but the content often is not and I fear the box (a few nice people excepted) may be becoming what radio mostly was when I was a boy: just a noise in the corner.
*One person about whom Yasmin and I disagree is the late Enoch Powell. From all I can gather she regards him as a racist monster who is probably pontificating in Hades.
I was a NHS employee for thirty two years and hold no brief for the Tories, who sought to diminish it from the outset, but of all the Ministers of Health (from whatever party) who became our lord and master over my time in the service, old Enoch was far and away the best.
He fought for, not against, us.
Popular or not, I'm afraid that's the truth.
I liked him.
NOTE TO END THE MONTH
Also seems to me. In this PC age: half the populace is sharply protesting its rights and the other half is frightened to be blunt. To the latter I would say

All being well, I will again next month

Saturday, July 14, 2018

Post 309. THE MID-MONTH NEWS.

FIRST THE GOOD.
Rescue of Thai youngsters.
Best news of the year so far was that all twelve of the Thai boy footballers (aged 11 to 17) and their coach (aged only 25), had escaped from the flooded Tham Luang cave complex where they had been trapped for seventeen days and that the international team of rescuers involved, including many Thai navy seals, were (with the exception of one brave seal who lost his life early on) equally fortunate.
A handful of the lads, who were stateless, may now be given statehood too.
Still hope for humanity, isn't there.
THEN THE WORRYING.
Our daughter Roz. (In the only picture I could find of her - at The Warner Bros. Studio Tour in 2012 - half blocked out by her father's left arm.)
The younger of our two daughters, Roz, has been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. She has undergone a variety of tests - the results of which the hospital seems to be taking an inordinately long time to release, let alone act upon - and has prepared herself with a thoroughness that has been one of her more positive traits ever since she came of age.
At present we are feeling very old and sadly aware that we have nothing to offer but concern and love.
That's it for the moment.
For chrissake get moving, St. Mary's.
THEN THE BAD:
The World Cup.
FOOTBALL'S STAYING ABROAD
It's staying abroad
It's staying abroad 
Now for chrissake shut up about it. 
THEN THE REALITY.
Trump's here.
Aaah, he can wait until next time.